Two devices may communicate via a serial communication cable. For example, a Receiver-in-Canal (RIC) device of a hearing aid may communicate with a receiver device via a serial communication cable. There may be a variety of situations in which one of the two devices needs to identify a type of the other device. For example, a first device may need to identify a type of a second device in order to properly format data that the first device sends to the second device. In other example, the first device may need to identify a type of the second device in order to determine how to interpret data received from the second device.